Solar Eclipse
by Kaonchik
Summary: I want the pain gone. I want to stop feeling what I have felt since the moment I realized John was going to die, that there was no way out this time." Aeryn POV, takes place after "Into the Lion's Den" through "Twice Shy"
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Farscape belongs to the geniuses at the Jim Henson company. I am merely filling in holes that seemed to fit to me, but were never truly explained.

Author's Note: This takes place after their destruction of the Command Carrier in Season 3, and before Aeryn leaves in Dog with Two Bones. If you haven't seen it and you don't follow the show faithfully, this will be very confusing seeing as I'm filling in Aeryn's thoughts and reasons behind everything she chooses to do. I tie in everything in her past as well as thoughts of the future, and hope it works with her character. This is my first story, so please review. :D

Chapter 1: Guilt

I can't do this anymore.

I thought I could. I thought I could beat my own _ridiculous _emotions, continue to be cold, unfeeling, unattached. I thought I could just…ignore him. Pretend he wasn't there. I suppose that's what a commando, however many cycles out of service, gets for thinking. His face, his voice, his special Human scent…it's impossible to ignore it all. Every time I look at him, I have to deal with the almost unbearable pain that knifes through me at the sight of him, alive. Every time I have to face the torturous fact that he is not the man that I shared the most blissful few monens of my life with on Talyn. He is not the man whose body I spent hours exploring, tasting, and committing every inch to sensory memory. He is not the man that suffered, writhed in pain, and _died_ in my arms.

And yet—he is.

That, if anything else, is what made up my mind. He is John Crichton. No, he isn't the same as he was with me, because he didn't go through what the other one went through with me. If he had, he would be. The thoughts are so confusing, even to me, but the lines between the two is swiftly blurring. But I watched him die once. And every time I look at him I see it again. I've had enough.

And now…

I press my hand to my stomach. I am pregnant. I found out on the Command Carrier a few solar days ago. The medic had given me a strange look as she told me. I remember feeling my heart nearly stop in my chest. I had been worrying about getting us all off the Carrier without sacrificing a single life, but at that moment it was revealed that I had a new dilemma.

I am a soldier. I can carry an inactive embryo for up to seven cycles. Even at this moment, lying here on my bed in the middle of the sleep cycle, this thought eats away at me. This child could be John's, and yet it could be the offspring of any other man I recreated with during the past few cycles.

It could be Velorek's.

The thought punctures my painstakingly guarded heart. I betrayed Velorek to his death. Had I done the same to John? Of course, not in the same way, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that yes, I had. I long ago swore that I would protect him. He is Human, lost and confused, in a world he knows barely anything about. I had vowed to guard him, teach him, protect him from any harm. I had failed. While I had been off kicking the dren out of Charrids and assisting Rygel, I had left him stranded. He had done the only thing he knew how to do in a time of crisis: sacrifice himself to protect others. If I had been there, I could've found another way. Maybe, maybe I could've forced that treacherous frelnik Furlow to close the device. Why…why did it have to be John?

Frell him, always being so noble. If he wasn't such a good man, with such a courageous, open nature, maybe I wouldn't have always had to protect him, teach him. Maybe we'd still be together.

"Maybe." I roll the word over my tongue, making sure I was saying the word in English. English, the language he had taught me during our time together on Talyn. "Maybe." So many frelling _maybes_. There should be no _maybes._ I should've been there. I wasn't and my lapse resulted in my lover's death. _One slip can cause fatality._ It was my fault he died.

My mother's words come back to me as I think this: "_I wasn't an assassin until I killed your father. I was a pilot."_

I was a pilot. John tore me away from that life. He made me discover, learn, feel, _love…_now though he is alive, he is dead. I as good as killed him…there is nowhere to go now. I can't stay here; I can't take the heart-wrenching aching pain of his touch, his voice, his very presence. I can't look at him, alive in front of me, without seeing him dead in my arms. I can't return to being a Peacekeeper, not after what we just did. But as I ponder this I'm starting to remember something I learned on the Command Carrier.

The ex-Peacekeeper unit. It's a squad of renounced or retired Peacekeepers who track down and stop terrorist beings like Sheyangs and Tavleks and even renegade Peacekeeper tyrants, any of which that might be getting brave thoughts and putting innocents in danger.

"_I wasn't an assassin until I killed your father. I was a pilot…I was bred to be a pilot. But they made me kill again and again…"_

Xhalax had been a pilot, which was why I was bred as one as well. The woman I remember, the one who sat by my bed and told me that I had been a product of love, told me how much she loved my father, how much she loved me, had been gone when I saw her again. My mother had been forced to kill her lover to protect her rank, and Peacekeeper Command had still never fully let her regain status. To fall in love and have a child is a crime to the Peacekeepers. Sex was a means for release and recreation, and childbirth was permitted only if the woman was on a breeding roster. They simply could not allow my mother to get away with what she'd done. Xhalax had been in terrible agony after killing my father. After carrying out each and every assassination, after killing countless people, she forgot about Talyn, my father. Forgot the pain, forgot the mere memory of him.

There is a knock on my door. I start and call out, "Who is it?"

"It's John. Aeryn, can we talk?"

My heart leaps to my throat. I attempt to say strongly, "No, I don't think so," but it comes out weak and vulnerable. The sound of it makes me cringe. "Listen, Aeryn…" his voice floats muffled through the door, "There are things I need to say, things we need to talk about. About…about where we're going from here. Please let me in."

I get up and open the door. He stands there; warm, real, _alive, _and gives me a shy look. "Hey," he whispers, reaching out to touch my arm. I barely move, a mere fraction of a dench away from his touch, but he gets the point. He drops his arm and says, "This needs to stop, Aeryn. We can't live like this."

_You're right._

"I don't feel like talking, Crichton."

John frowns and I see a tear glistening in his eye.

_Those beautiful blue eyes. _

_I see those eyes staring blankly into space as his cooling body relaxes and he takes his last breath._

I take a shaky breath, more like a gasp for air, and dismiss him by saying, "I'm busy." He nods, giving up, and before I can stop him he lifts a hand to my face and strokes my cheekbone in that way of his. At his touch, ten thousand emotions and sensations hit me all at once and tears spill unbidden out of my eyes. I quickly jerk away and slide the door closed in his face.

I turn and sag into the door, the warm metal pressing through the leather of my vest to reach my skin. Moya feels my pain. She throbs slowly, attempting to regulate my heartbeat. She knows my anguish, and she is there for me, but this time there is no comfort. I slowly slide to the ground, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them, hugging myself. The tears finally break the emotional stone barrier and I sob into my arms, biting myself to muffle the sound.

The agony that grips me when I look at him…I'm living in a constant state of regret, shame, grief, and guilt. I can't live like this anymore. I am a soldier. To show emotion means dead. I had seen that firsthand…twice. The tears ebb away as I finally make up my mind as to what I'm going to do now.

"_They made me kill again and again. And finally I stopped caring." _

I want the pain gone. I want to stop feeling what I have felt since the moment I realized John was going to die.

I stand up and begin to pack my things.

I don't want to care anymore.


	2. Regret

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING! Wish I did, we'd all be satisfied. :D

Author's note: Hey! I only have one review so far, but that's one more than I expected! Thank you so much, it makes me feel loved. :D Now, this chapter takes place before Aeryn returns in Season four, let's say a day before "Promises". Again, Aeryn POV, her thoughts and feelings. She tries to be so badass, but what's really going on in the mind of this commando?

I hope it was this. XP

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I can feel my body shutting down.

My chemically-induced delirium has gotten to the point where the only thing I can do now is sit in my Prowler, unmoving, breathing shallow and difficult. I can no longer even move my hand to redirect myself. I'm floating dead and running out of oxygen. Not that it matters really, at least I will die before the Living Death takes me.

My last thoughts are of John.

I can barely remember him. I've nearly forgotten his face, his body, his voice…his taste and feel. I regret leaving. I regret a lot of things. Our last kiss; so full of pain, so full of pent-up passion. I remember…

"_Do you love John Crichton?"_

John. Yes, I love him. I would never, EVER lie about that. I love him now, even as my last memories fade and I become a wraith, a soulless being until I suffocate to death or my comrades find me and kill me out of mercy.

I've done my time. I've been on this squad for nearly a cycle. I've killed, seduced, and blackmailed to ease my pain, earn my right in this group…

And it's not enough.

It was never enough. The unit was open, eager to receive me, having heard about Moya's exploits, but I've lived empty, dead, _truly_ unfeeling for so long. Because John hasn't been here with me. He wasn't there after my first assassination, where I lay sweating in bed with the aftershock of killing someone who had never done anything to myself or my comrades. I hadn't killed out of defense; I'd been following orders…something I hadn't had to do for nearly four cycles. Something I never thought I'd do again.

John is not here to press a cold compress to my forehead to ease the pain, to kiss me, to hold me…I'm alone. The one way I vowed never to die was alone, but here I am. I should never have left. I should've sat down, told him everything, communicated. Then, maybe, just maybe I'd have worked through it. We would be okay again. Maybe I would've seen then what I see now: John Crichton. No difference. Him, the clone, they were both equal and original, whichever one was which. Same memories, same brain, and same nonsensical comments pouring from their mouths…they were one and the same. I'd loved him before he was cloned, and I'd unknowingly loved them both afterwards.

_He'd begged me to stay._

He'd begged. He'd stubbornly refused to let me go. And that _frelling_ coin toss…I'd been lost. Too many emotions going on at once, we had to resort to a coin to decide our fate. It had ended wrong. Now my mind will shut down, and eventually I will die. The news will reach Moya before long and John will forever think that I hate him, that I couldn't stand to be around him, to touch him, to _trust _him. He would never know of the child I carry.

The child.

When I die, the baby will die as well. The unit does not know of my pregnancy. My child will never be known. The child that could have changed mine and John's life forever. "Baby…ba-by. My baby…" I mutter in English, sounding out the word. Baby. The word that John called me for so long. The word that meant the world in one small vessel.

The last of my memories fade. I can't picture John as any more than a man in my faint past. He's gone…the child…the baby….what baby?

I'm suddenly caught in a docking web. Microts, arns pass for me as I hope beyond hope..._beyond hope_…it is someone who will ease my pain forever.

A rush of cold air hits me and I am pulled out of my Prowler. I am stripped of my uniform and put in something sleek, black, tight…cold. I feel the pain ease, memories starting to come back to me…

I hadn't been completely gone. If I had, there would be no going back. But who had saved me? Who had this equipment?

"Greetings, Aeryn Sun."

I know that voice. Soft, menacing, a guttural hiss. An alarm triggers somewhere in my brain, because I know this is not good. This is the definition of fear…but why is something so terrible helping me?

"I barely got here in time, Aeryn. Do not worry, I will not harm you…you are too valuable for my purposes."

_Why do I know that voice?_

"Moya is not far from here. I already have her on my scanners. Six arns, maybe a little more."

Moya? Is that someone I know? A friend? A mother?

No, a ship.

A Leviathan.

_Home._

"Last we heard, John was not aboard, but he is on his way. We will get there before he does, I'm afraid, but I'm sure he will be very glad to see you again, regardless of the fact that he thinks I'm dead and gone."

John? I know that name. I know the face…I know that _love_…

Why is this menace taking me home? Why is he helping me? Why would he want me to see John again if he wanted to hurt me?

"When your memories return, Officer Sun, I will explain my urgency to be aboard your Leviathan, my need for asylum. Until then, rest here."

Asylum.

The man who is helping me…he wants asylum aboard Moya? Why? Who?

Finally, it clicks as the metal door clangs shut and I am left in the cold darkness. The last words out of m mouth before exhaustion claims me are nothing but a whimper.

"No, John. Stay away."

I sob, then whisper,

"It's Scorpius."

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Author's note: Only one more chapter left. Who wants it? :P


	3. Home Is Where The Heart Is

Author's Note: Ok this is the last chapter. Tell me what you think please, these are my first stories. I want feedback! Should I keep writing or crawl back in my hole?

Hope you enjoy, this is the end and it takes place after Twice Shy. Again, Aeryn's thoughts.

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Cholak, how I've missed him.

He lays with me on my bed, one arm draped over my torso, one leg tucked between mine, his face buried in his favorite spot in the crook of my neck. I'm stroking his hair with one hand, lightly grazing my nails over his scalp, and the other is pinned between us. I do not mind that, because I love the feel of his well-muscled stomach against my knuckles, the back of my hand. His breath tickles my neck, and every now and then his hand grips my hip in his own unconscious way of making sure I'm still here. As if I'd ever leave again…

We've been through so much, John and I. When I came back to Moya, bringing that _abomination_ back into John's reality, it only added to the rift between us and to his disdain of my not telling him I was pregnant. He was so hurt, so lost…and his only defense against that was complete and total ignorance of me—just as I had displayed to him. There were times I could feel him warming up to me again, wanting, _needing_ me again, then he'd sniff more frelling lakka and I'd be pushed away once more. I guess I've always known how bad I hurt him. I'd made a wrong choice. Okay, truthfully, I'd made quite a few wrong choices. I'd left him instead of letting him help me with my pain, I'd known I was pregnant and didn't tell him, I'd become an assassin—the one thing I swore I'd never be—and I'd allowed his enemy to return to our ship. Someone told him before I could that I was with child. I still have no clue who told him…but it doesn't matter. I'd had to explain to him at that point that I didn't know who the father of my child was, which I think cut him the deepest. I could see it in his eyes. He told me just today that it was Scorpius who was keeping him away from me, Scorpius's coveting of his wormhole technology and John's protection of me…and though that may be part of the truth, it's not the whole truth. Yet, he doesn't have to say the rest. By telling me just part of the truth I know that he's forgiven me, and that was enough for me. After all, he has to protect his weak human ego. And now finally, after every twist and turn and up and down of this emotional "roller coaster" as John sometimes says, we're together again. After being shrunk, shot, screwed, poked, prodded, studied, tortured, and frelled, we've made it this far. We're here. And nothing, no one, no circumstance will ever pull us apart again. I would give my life for this man and I now he would do the same—he _has_ done the same.

Love.

He stirs against me and I feel his tongue and lips on my neck. I grin and close my eyes, reeling in the sensation. It had been so long…even longer for him than it had been for me.

"Sleep well?" I ask softly. I feel him not against my skin and lift his head to nuzzle my jawbone. His mouth moves over to my ear and gently nips the lobe. That simple action sends shivers down my spine and I find myself turning toward him, freeing my trapped arm and wrapping both around him. We situate until I am laying on top of him, our bodies flush and our foreheads together. He gently takes my mouth with his and pulls my body seemingly even closer to his. As we kiss, I feel an extreme sense of belonging. Once, in an intimate discussion, he had asked me what I thought the definition of love was. Though I couldn't answer then, I can answer now.

John has this saying: "Home is where the heart is." If that is true, then I am home. Not even with Velorek did I have the sensation of being so completely connected that it is as if we are one and indistinguishable. It feels as though we have crawled so deep inside each other that we are not just John Crichton and Aeryn Sun—we are each other.

That is love, and I couldn't think of a better home.

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The End. :D


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